Come Here To Me!

There was a great discussion on The Frontline last night around TD’s and whether their role is a local or national one, looking at the role of ‘parish pump politics’ in Irish society.

I love the term ‘parish pump politics’. I firmly believe the roots of it are to be found in the early days of firefighting when church parishes were obligied to provide fire protection.

In 1676 an Order in Council would force every Dublin church to hold thirty-six buckets, two ladders and three hooks for the purpose of fire prevention. By 1711, the Lord Mayor of Dublin ordered that each Parish within Dublin hold two water fire engines, for the purpose of combating fires which broke out in the city.

Remarkably, at Saint Werburgh’s Church on Werburgh Street, one can see two early examples of parish water fire engines.

(c) Las Fallon

Historian of the Cork city fire service Pat Poland noted that heavy penalties were imposed upon churchwardens who did not hold two engines, and also that it was specified that different sums of money should be paid to the first, second and third engines to arrive at fires.

In Dublin, the figures stood at thirty shillings for the first arrival, twenty shillings for the second, and ten shillings for the third. These payment levels did not reflect the level of work put in by particular engine in combating a fire, but rather their speed in reaching one! As Poland notes “These shenanigans and conniving may originally have given rise to the expression ‘parish pump politics’